THE CUSTOMER

Tacoma Screw Products Inc. is one of the largest distributors of fasteners, tools, maintenance, shop and industrial supplies in the US. The company services over 40,000 business account customers from its fifteen branch locations in the Pacific North West. Its client base includes businesses from multiple industry verticals including manufacturing, construction, transportation, aerospace, maritime and others.

THE PROBLEM AND THE FOLIO3 SOLUTION

Tacoma Screw wanted to develop a customized NetSuite CRM app for the iPhone that would provide its field sales teams with on-the-go access to NetSuite sales workflows and CRM data. It also wanted to develop a customized sales workflow in its NetSuite account that would enable it to create indefinitely recurring sales appointments for its sales team members.

The company was looking for a vendor with expertise in both NetSuite customization and NetSuite custom mobile app development, to help it create such a solution. Tacoma Screw chose to partner with Folio3 for this project, due to Folio3’s extensive expertise in NetSuite development and after seeing its highly popular NetSuite CRM app “NSDroid” for Android smartphones. The company wanted Folio3 to develop a similar but highly customized NetSuite CRM app for the iPhone and integrate it with its NetSuite ERP.

After analyzing the requirements, Folio3’s development team started work on the project. The team first designed a clickable prototype using the Axure rapid prototyping tool, to give Tacoma Screw an idea of the app’s functionality and work flows. Based on the feedback received, the team then developed the complete NetSuite CRM app for the iPhone that provides secure, real time access and editing of the NetSuite sales workflow (sales appointments/tasks, sales call status, notes, etc.) and CRM data (such as customers, prospects, leads & contacts). The app also provides one touch calling, email & mapping as well as data search, offline caching and offline data addition and editing.

In parallel with NetSuite custom mobile app development, the Folio3 team also developed a customized sales workflow within Tacoma Screw’s NetSuite account, enabling its management to create indefinitely recurring daily sales routes/calls schedules for sales representatives.

Thanks to these NetSuite customizations and the customized NetSuite CRM app, Tacoma Screw’s management has been able to greatly enhance its sales tracking, as its sales managers and administrators can now review each sales representative’s performance on a daily basis. Having instant access to their daily sales appointments, tasks and CRM data has also significantly boosted the efficiency and productivity of Tacoma Screw’s sales teams.

Tacoma Screw was so pleased with these results that it has engaged Folio3 to add additional features to the app (such as greater calendar and activities support) and provide maintenance as necessary. The partnership is now approaching its first year.

NETSUITE CUSTOM MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT – TECHNOLOGIES USED

The primary technologies used on this project include Objective C, PHP, SuiteScript, Core Data, Mapkit, Eventkit, iOS 5/6, Storyboard and LAMP.

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY USED

Folio3 used the Agile Development Methodology on this project with Redmine as the project management tool, Basecamp as the project collaboration tool and Axure for prototyping.